What kind of person does Lindsey Graham favor for President?

This kind:

Even Lindsey Graham is reportedly telling Republicans to support Donald Trump

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.”

“He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”

“I’d rather lose without Donald Trump than try to win with with him. I wish he would leave the party. I don’t care if he runs as an independent. If we lose the 2016 election, so be it.”

“You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

That was Lindsey Graham back in December.

I predicted this turnabout in January (Admittedly not a hard prediction to make.)

So now we live in a world where leading Trump supporters view Trump as “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” and yet support him anyway.


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33 Responses to “What kind of person does Lindsey Graham favor for President?”

  1. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    24. May 2016 at 12:39

    “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”

    -I.e., not an illegal-loving, unpatriotic, anti-Christian elitist. And there’s no evidence Trump has used race-baiting in his campaign. Unlike, say, Her. Or Bernie.

  2. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    24. May 2016 at 12:39

    News Flash!

    1. Lindsey Graham has spent a dozen years jonesing for the Congressional Republican ass-clown award; Peter King has been tough competition.

    2. The alternative is Hellary. Social signaling in the faculty rathskellar is not one of Lindsey Graham’s avocations. He has a constituency and bridges to others to keep up.

  3. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    24. May 2016 at 12:44

    BTW, your last Econlog post was pretty good, Scott. Sometimes, I wonder if there are not too many regulations. I’m not anti-regulation per se, but there seems to be too little accountability in how they’re formed.

    Make America Great Again!

  4. Gravatar of Brian Donohue Brian Donohue
    24. May 2016 at 12:57

    No misogyny?

    Pro tip for reducing keystrokes: the by now familiar litany of “misogynist, racist, xenophobe” can be distilled down to a handy MRX; verbally “mister X”, applicable to Trump and the tens of millions of other icky people like him in this country.

    MRX frees up an additional 24 characters per tweet!

  5. Gravatar of Joshua Joshua
    24. May 2016 at 13:41

    He disputed what the source for the story said.

    http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20160523/PC1603/160529733

    “All I can say is, I never told anybody to give money to Donald J. Trump,” Graham said. “I’ve told people if I had money to give, I’d give it to the House and Senate candidates. It is important to unite our party, our House and our Senate candidates. If you want to help Mr. Trump, God bless you.”

  6. Gravatar of bill bill
    24. May 2016 at 13:50

    I guess Mr. Graham could reply, “Foolish consistencies are the hobgobblins of little minds”. I’m being facetious, of course.
    If Joshua’s quote is accurate, then that “God bless you” at the end can be interpreted two ways. 1. Like a “thank you” or 2. like a “I hope you don’t end up in hell”.

  7. Gravatar of Matthew Waters Matthew Waters
    24. May 2016 at 14:03

    “I.e., not an illegal-loving, unpatriotic, anti-Christian elitist. And there’s no evidence Trump has used race-baiting in his campaign. Unlike, say, Her. Or Bernie.”

    I guess “ethnicity-baiting” is more accurate, since Latinos are an ethnicity and not a race. To say Trump hasn’t criticized Mexicans as a group doesn’t pass the laugh-test. Muslims happen to also generally be different-looking foreigners.

    The birther movement was more outright against blacks. Both McCain and Cruz were actually born abroad and so birtherism wasn’t about a valiant defense of a clause of the constitution. I’m not saying McCain and Cruz should be barred, both being born to Americans. But it is hard to see birtherism happening with a white candidate.

    During the campaign, Trump tweeted a false image that said 81% of whites murdered were killed by blacks. Actually 82% of white victims had white perpetrators.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/23/donald-trump/trump-tweet-blacks-white-homicide-victims/

  8. Gravatar of Matthew Waters Matthew Waters
    24. May 2016 at 14:05

    Graham seems consistent to me. He wants to support GOP Senate and House candidates while not supporting Trump. He’s clearly being derisive with the “God Bless You,” like “if that’s what you want, more power to you.”

  9. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    24. May 2016 at 14:10

    “The birther movement was more outright against blacks.”

    -If Obama was a descendant of South Carolina slaves, no birther movement would have ever emerged.

    BTW retweets are not endorsements.

  10. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    24. May 2016 at 14:23

    Both McCain and Cruz were actually born abroad and so birtherism wasn’t about a valiant defense of a clause of the constitution.

    Rubbish. McCain was born in a territorial dependency of the United States (on a naval base) and a collection of birthers has been making ill-informed contentions about Ted Cruz for over a year. There’s a smaller nest of Jindal birthers and even Santorum birthers. They’re very pig-headed and traffick in any false meme about law or the biography of the candidates that they come across in the wacky world of websites.

  11. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    24. May 2016 at 14:33

    But it is hard to see birtherism happening with a white candidate.

    You’re not seeing it because you’re not looking for it. It’s not as if the Cruz birthers haven’t been running their mouth at length.

    -If Obama was a descendant of South Carolina slaves, no birther movement would have ever emerged.

    Good point. The odd thing about the residual BO birthers was how they simply denied the significance of the sort of ordinary documentation you’d ask to demonstrate anyone’s place of birth, how they came up with elaborate scenarios to explain the presence of newspaper birth announcements coincident with the long-form birth certificate’s issue, how they ginned out of the air fanciful legal principles (e.g. the notion that an American woman on American soil cannot pass on citizenship if she’s a minor; the number of people born to women under 21 in this country in 1961 is in six-digits; the birther birdbrains evidently fancy they’re all aliens), and how they rejected occam’s razor completely. The same sort of psychological disposition you find in Kennedy assassination obsessives.

  12. Gravatar of Kevin Kevin
    24. May 2016 at 15:06

    Its too bad. I was starting to really like Lindsey Graham. Besides his cartoonishly hawkish views, he seemed to be one of the reasonable ones left in the party. Oh well.

  13. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    24. May 2016 at 15:23

    I still wonder why people like Sleazy P. and this guy from Britain – whose name I won’t mention – are so much anti-Trump.
    Arguably, they are the worst commenters here. Bad people to the core. According to ssumner’s theories those guys should be huge fanboys of The Donald. But they aren’t. They seem to be quite the opposite.

  14. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    24. May 2016 at 15:38

    Pattycake politics. America is actually a nice place, politically.

    Now if Lindsey Graham had shot his mouth off like that in certain large Asian nations…

    You have cupcake leaders in the USA. Trump is less nationalistic and protectionist than Ronald Reagan was, and as for the overt militarism of Bush jr….oooof.

    Has Trump dressed up in a miliary costume yet, ala Bush jr.?

  15. Gravatar of Matthew Waters Matthew Waters
    24. May 2016 at 15:45

    Man, the response to the birther comment really makes me want to say “If you don’t think Trump’s a racist, why in the hell do you like him so much?”

    And well:

    “As part of the study, 295 students were asked a series of questions used to gauge prejudice. Other questions addressed Obama’s performance as president as well as his “Americanism.” Those with a greater tendency toward racism rated Obama lower.

    “Many in the media have speculated that current criticisms of Obama are a result of his race, rather than his agenda,” the study concluded. “We believe that the current results are an empirical demonstration that this is sadly the case.”

    As analyzed by psychologist Jack Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research who was not part of the study, “the results strongly support a role of racism in the birther movement,” he told USA Today.”

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0430/Are-Donald-Trump-and-his-fellow-birthers-racist

    Also in the article, Donald Trump would have led at the beginning of the 2012 GOP primary if he had entered, at least when the article was written.

    The antipathy towards Obama is also tinged with the anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner attitudes. So it’s true to say it’s not completely race, if you’re looking for “race-baiting” in a literal sense. But a general appeal to nativist, authoritarian concerns is hardly more comforting.

  16. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    24. May 2016 at 16:11

    @Matthew Walters
    I love those kind of “studies”. They are always blind on one eye at least. Where does the special sympathy for Obama come from for example? What is the motivation behind supporting him in a lot of cases? Why did like 95% of blacks vote Obama? Let’s say Obama would have inherited the eumelanin distribution of his mother, would he even be a politician at all? Racism is not a one way street at all.

    My theory is: Trump is a white version of Obama in certain aspects. Trump only exists because – unfortunately – Obama failed. And the really sad part is: In a lot of cases Obama didn’t even try to succeed. He promised a lot of stuff (and people like me trusted and believed him) but in a lot of cases he didn’t even try to deliver.

  17. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    24. May 2016 at 16:20

    And the facts to race and crime in the US are still astonishing, surprising, maybe even shocking. No matter what Trump says. For example:

    “According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and others only 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than for whites, the victim rate 6 times higher.

    Most studies find that the more ethnically/racially heterogeneous an area is, the higher its crime rates tend to be.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide

  18. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    24. May 2016 at 16:25

    “He [Reagan] also said (while campaigning in Georgia) that Confederate PresidentJefferson Davis was “a hero of mine.”[44]—Wikipedia

    And we are worried about Trump?

  19. Gravatar of Lorenzo from Oz Lorenzo from Oz
    24. May 2016 at 16:35

    The branding effect of political Party identity in an entrenched two-Party system is very, very powerful. And, for historical reasons, it’s hard for Republicans to say “we had an election, but I refuse to abide by the results”.

  20. Gravatar of Gordon Gordon
    24. May 2016 at 16:36

    All of this reminds me of what happens in professional sports. There have been star athletes implicated in sexual assaults, domestic violence, and murder. But all of this is often overlooked or rationalized away if they can win the big game.

    Or look at what happened in France when a reporter was urged by her mother to keep quiet about having been sexually assaulted by DSK because it would have damaged her mother’s political party.

    Whether it’s politics or sports, people will overlook just about anything about a person as long as that person can win the game for their team.

  21. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    24. May 2016 at 17:15

    Has Trump dressed up in a miliary costume yet, ala Bush jr.?

    Bush was on active duty for 2 years (1968-70) and drilled for 3 years (1970-73). In the 2003 photographs of him, he’s not in a ‘costume’, but in a utilitarian garment appropriate for the plane on which he’d been flying.

  22. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    24. May 2016 at 17:17

    As analyzed by psychologist Jack Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research who was not part of the study, “the results strongly support a role of racism in the birther movement,” he told USA Today.”

    Social psychologists are adepts of nonreplicable research. And the conclusion is morally trivial.

  23. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    24. May 2016 at 18:04

    Sumner is xenophobic about Americans.

    Whatever happened to his belief of the impenetrable “wisdom of the crowd”? Oh I know, appealing to ad populum is in fact a fallacy. But we only speak to the wisdom of the crowd when it just so happens to agree with us. Otherwise, dead silence.

  24. Gravatar of gofx gofx
    24. May 2016 at 21:03

    Geez, Scott. It is really this simple: Right now, the fact that many Americans are willing to take a chance on Trump is a commentary on how BAD Hillary Clinton is, and how Obama has abused his office. In this case, the devil you don’t really know is perceived by many as a better risk than the devil you do know. Call Trump everything you want, call him Satan, whatever, right now half the people prefer Satan to Clinton. And that’s a comment on her, not those people. She’s been a First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State. To know her is not to love her. Even the Bernie socialists don’t like her. Heck, they might still draft Biden at the last minute.

    Hillary Clinton is mean (“can’t stand the military in the White House”), vindictive (White House Post Office firing), absolutely corrupt (cattle futures, speeches, Loral and China, Clinton foundation, personal email server, “we landed under sniper fire”, Rose Law firm records, “I only erased personal emails”), incompetent (Russian reset, Libya, Benghazi), pandering (slipping into the accent of the group to which she is speaking, especially African American groups), and has promised to continue the socialist policies of Obama. We KNOW this, for sure. We’ve SEEN it. And she has seen Obama’s playbook on how to abuse executive power and how he has been, in general, aided by the courts. You think she’s going to suddenly turn into George Washington? You think she doesn’t have an “enemies list”? You think her donors and payers of protection money won’t get preferential treatment?

    It is actually more likely that Trump would be less corrupt, more likely to be restrained by courts and Congress, and his cabinet, whereas Hillary will be emboldened by all of the above.
    This is not an election of good choices, but like in economics, it’s about relative choices. There are rational reasons to choose either Clinton, Trump, or Gary Johnson.

  25. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    24. May 2016 at 21:08

    @scott
    Come on. This shit has been going on in American politics for close to 250 years. Not condoning…just saying.

  26. Gravatar of JonathanH JonathanH
    24. May 2016 at 21:13

    IMO Trump is the worst option this year and other GOP members have said as much. They just want power or a seat at the table or to cover their ass in case Trump wins.

  27. Gravatar of Massimo Heitor Massimo Heitor
    24. May 2016 at 21:17

    It’s pretty standard to bash a candidate when you are competing against them or supporting a rival and later support the candidate you formerly bashed when circumstances change and they are your supported choice.

  28. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    25. May 2016 at 04:03

    @Gordon

    Whether it’s politics or sports, people will overlook just about anything about a person as long as that person can win the game for their team.

    Which makes a lot of sense – at least to some extent.

    And don’t forget that we live in a world in which you can’t choose between Lucifer and an Archangel. There are only Hillary and Trump left.

  29. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. May 2016 at 05:27

    Yes, GOP candidates saw this sort of thing about each other all the time. I wonder if commenters actually believe the nonsense they are writing.

    The GOP has entirely lost touch with the real world, and is feeding off pure emotion.

  30. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    25. May 2016 at 07:29

    The GOP has entirely lost touch with the real world, and is feeding off pure emotion.

    The median figure in the last batch of RCP-reported polls has it that DJT has a notional lead over Hellary. Someone’s in touch with a fat chunk of the electorate (though I gather that in the judgement of the Mercatus Center sachems, these people are part of some fictional or artificial world).

  31. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    25. May 2016 at 08:15


    The GOP has entirely lost touch with the real world, and is feeding off pure emotion.

    You sound like Krugman now which is kind of sad.

    Nearly everybody lives in its own “real” world. The GOP wins like 60% of the white vote. And even more amongst white blue-collar workers. Those people often feel that parts of the GOP have still some connection to (their) real world – while the elite, the left, huge parts of the media, most intellectuals and many others have entirely lost touch to their real world. It’s like the Western world falls apart in at least two camps. And unfortunately Obama didn’t really improve the situation. If anything he only made it worse.

  32. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    25. May 2016 at 08:24

    Sumner wrote:

    “The GOP has entirely lost touch with the real world, and is feeding off pure emotion.”

    That is exactly what you do with market monetarism! You are completely out of touch with the reality of socialist banking, and are preying on the common man’s emotions with respect to his employment, to push your socialist agenda.

    You are preying on people’s fears.

    You know what? I think the main reason you keep writing about how much you hate the GOP and Trump and all the rest, is because you see yourself in them. And, daily it seems, by writing how you despise them, that it serves as some form of catharsis and reaction formation for yourself.

    Unfortunately, that method won’t work. Only improving your own ideas will work. You’re a collectivist, that has to be abandoned. Don’t worry what your peers think.

  33. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    25. May 2016 at 08:52

    At least 2/3 of the American Jewish votes have always been in favor of the Democrats since at least 1924. Goldwater got around 10%, Nixon around 18%, Bush senior around 11-19%. That’s hardly news. The Jewish vote doesn’t matter anyway.

    Weirdly enough the strong anti-Semites here are pretty much all anti-Trump, too. This seems to be no sheer coincidence. You find a lot of those guys in the anti-Trump camp and generally on the Left. A hardcore anti-Semite does not like Trump at all. For them Trump is way too soft on Israel for example.

    @Major.Freedom
    I wrote something along those lines a few weeks ago, too. There’s indeed one obvious explanation for ssumner’s many posts about Trump: A certain degree of fascination.

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